Empowering the Poor

Today, there are more than four billion mobile phone subscribers globally, with two-thirds of them living in the developing world.  This makes the cell phone a powerful tool for providing poor people with access to information and services that can improve their lives and livelihoods.  Grameen Foundation’s Village Solutions program harnesses technology to create innovative, sustainable, and easy-to-replicate business solutions that enhance economic development for the poor and poorest as entrepreneurs and community members. Our Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Innovation Program focuses on developing, testing, strengthening, and scaling products and services that can improve health care, increase agricultural yields and income, facilitate transactions and provide a range of other benefits.  

Village Phone
For millions living on less than $2 per day, affordable and reliable access to telecommunications services STILL does not exist. In these rural communities, people are often forced to travel great distances to make a phone call.  Launched in 2003 in Uganda, Grameen Foundation’s Village Phone program builds on the pioneering work of Grameen Telecom in Bangladesh, which has created new economic opportunities for more than 362,000 Village Phone Operators to date.  Individuals borrow money from a microfinance institution (MFI) to purchase a Village Phone micro-franchise business.  These “Village Phone Operators” (VPOs) then rent the phones to members of their communities on a per-call basis at reasonable rates, recharge telephones in areas outside of the electricity grid, and sell affordable airtime. Their businesses allow the VPOs to earn enough money to repay their loan and generate essential income to pay their children’s school fees, expand their current businesses, or create new economic opportunities.

Since its inception, we have worked with technology and development stakeholders around the globe to expand Village Phone services in multiple countries. We have partnered with local MFIs and NGOs; technology companies such as Qualcomm and Nokia; and telecommunications providers such as MTN in Uganda, Rwanda, and Cameroon and Bakrie Telecom in Southeast Asia. To date, we have helped to create more than 25,000 Village Phone micro-franchises in Africa and Asia, through direct technical assistance, partnerships, and advisory services.  

Grameen Foundation has also identified ways in which Village Phone Operators can expand their role, offering key services to community members. We are currently piloting tailored business models for the VPOs that enable them to offer additional products and services, increasing both their economic activity and the value they can bring to their communities. We have also recently begun integrating the Progress out of Poverty Index^TM (PPI^TM) into our Village Phone work in order to better assess how the living conditions of Village Phone Operators are changing.

Application Laboratory (AppLab)
Our Application Laboratory (AppLab) builds on Grameen Foundation’s successful Village Phone program.  For two years, we worked closely with Google, MTN Uganda, and local organizations to launch a suite of mobile applications in 2009. These applications provide poor communities with access to actionable health and agricultural information, as well as a mobile phone based marketplace, which allows buyers and sellers of agricultural and other products and services to connect.